This abandoned island was once a brutal prison — and the photos of it will haunt you

France had a brutal penal colony located on the islands of French Guiana from 1797 to 1953.

Since the prison's closure, several businesses have attempted to build on the beautiful and desolate islands — but all have abandoned it.

The abandoned prison buildings have slowly been reclaimed by nature.

France currently welcomes tourists to the islands so that the atrocities of the past are neither forgotten nor repeated.

Romain Veillon is a photographer who loves to shoot urban ruins and share what he finds with the world. The beauty of what remains when humanity abandons a place to nature is fully evident in his book, "Ask The Dust"— as well as his impressive portfolio.

Veillon first learned the history of the prisoners France sent to Guiana when he was a young student growing up in the country. When he read the famous account "Papillon" by Henry Charrière — later revealed to be true stories from many prisoners, not only from the author, as he'd originally claimed — young Veillon thought at first that it was just fiction.

It was only later — with much horror — that he realized the terrible things he'd been reading about had happened to actual prisoners. Ever since then Veillon hoped to visit the site.

"I always [wanted] to see with my own eyes what remained of the colonial penitentiary on the islands because it is a unique relic of our past," he told INSIDER.

Keep scrolling to see what he found, and to peek inside his mind as he took it all in.

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French colonists discovered three islands off the coast of French Guiana in the 1760s, naming them Îles du Salut. Two of the islands — Saint-Joseph and Diable — were transformed into a penal colony and brutal prison in 1797.

However, centuries ago, the complete isolation of these islands offered little chance of prisoner escape.

About being sent to Saint-Joseph, Veillon wrote: "This punishment was saved for 'incorrigible' convicts, and the island Saint-Joseph became the most feared place of detention of the colony; the jail of the jail."

"The atmosphere is quite unreal with the opposition of the beauty of the place and the dark memories haunting it," Veillon recalled.

Veillon's goal with this series was to make viewers feel that duality: the restless ghosts of this infamous place set alongside the undeniable, haunting beauty of nature molding it into a tropical paradise once more.

"... it was exciting to walk in the same paths used by the prisoners many decades ago and remember all the anecdotes I knew about them," Veillon recounted.

At the same time, Veillon was sad to see the prison itself crumbling before his eyes. "Must we let time erase our mistakes — or is it the opposite? Must we need to save them in order not to repeat them?" he asked.